y clouds she had been lazily watching, but a short time before, from
the hammock.

The _Golden Butterfly_ had never done better.

"You're a darling!" breathed Peggy confidentially to the motor that with
steady pulse drove them upward and onward.

CHAPTER IV.

IN A STORM

Dwarfed to the merest midgets, the figures about the Prescott house waved
enthusiastically, as the golden-winged monoplane made a graceful swoop
high above the elms and maples surrounding it. Other figures could be
glimpsed too, now, running about excitedly outside the barn-like structure
housing the Mortlake aeroplanes.

"Guess they think you are stealing a march on them," drawled Lieut.
Bradbury.

A wild, reckless feeling, born of the thrilling sensation of aerial
riding, came over Peggy. She would do it--she would. With a scarcely
perceptible thrust of her wrist, she altered the angle of the rudder-like
tail, and instantly the obedient _Golden Butterfly_ began racing through
space toward the Mortlake plant.

The naval officer, quick to guess her plan, laughed as happily as a
mischievous boy.

"What a lark!" he exclaimed. "It's contrary to all discipline, but it's
jolly good fun."

Peggy turned a small brass-capped valve--the timer. At once the aeroplane
showed accelerated speed. It fairly cut through the air. Both the
occupants were glad to lower their goggles to protect their eyes from the
sharp, cutting sensation of the atmosphere, as they rushed against
it--into its teeth, as it were.

Peggy glanced at the indicator. The black pointer on the white dial was
creeping up--fifty, sixty, sixty-two--she would show this officer what the
Prescott monoplane could do.

"Sixty-four! Great Christmas!"

The exclamation came from the officer. He had leaned forward and scanned
the indicator eagerly.

"We'll do better when we have our new type of motor installed," said
Peggy, with a confident nod. The young fellow gasped.

"This is the twentieth century with a vengeance," he murmured, sinking
back in his rear seat, which was as comfortably upholstered as the
luxurious tonneau of a five-thousand-dollar automobile.

Like a darting, pouncing swallow, seeking its food in mid-air, the _Golden
Butterfly_ swooped, soared and dived in long, graceful gradients above the
Mortlake plant. Once Peggy brought the aeroplane so close to the ground in
a long, swinging sweep, that it seemed as if it could never recover enough
"way" to rise again. Even